In the long history of evolution it has not been necessary for man to understand multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems until very recent historical times. Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental skill needed to properly interpret the dynamic behavior of the systems of which we have now become a part.

Monday, March 9, 2015

“We should never forget that the greenest parts of the Amazon are Indian reserves. The Indians are the guardians of the rainforest.” Sebastião Salgado

The Yanomami of the Amazon Basin in Brazil (Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas)

In the mid-1970s, with Brazil’s military regime eager to develop the
Amazon Basin, a northern section of the trans-Amazonian highway reached
into Yanomami territory, introducing influenza, measles and malaria and
resulting in thousands of deaths.

Maturacá, in contrast, was engulfed in a gold rush in the late 1980s
which attracted over 35,000 freelance gold-diggers to traditional
Yanomami lands, not only bringing new diseases but also using violence
against Indians and poisoning their rivers with the mercury they used to
separate gold from mud. Once more, uncounted thousands of Indians died.

Today, a new bill pending before Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies would
proclaim a “public interest” in allowing Indian reserves to be used for
farming, mining, oil and gas pipelines, hydroelectric dams, human
settlements and military operations. The bill, already approved by the
Senate.

Excerpted from an article in the Washington Post produced by Brian Gross and Shelly Tan.

Before 1500 A.D., there were approximately 6 million indigenous people living in the Brazilian Amazon. But as the forests disappeared, so too did the people. In the early 1900s, there were less than 250,000 indigenous people living in the Amazon.

Originally, 6 million square miles of tropical rainforest existed worldwide. But as a result of deforestation, only 2.4 million square miles remain.

At the current rate of tropical forest loss, 5–10 percent of tropical rainforest species will be lost per decade.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide depend on forests for their livelihoods.

Fifty-seven percent of the world's forests, including most tropical forests, are located in developing countries.

Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million square kilometers of forests around the world were cut down. That's roughly the size of all of the states in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River.

“The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps” (Mark Jenkins, National Geographic, 2013)

So, well within my lifetime, a pristine mountaintop, at over 29,000 ft (8,848 meters) above sea level, towering over most of humankind's cacophonous cabbage patch, has been turned into just another pile of our shit.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Washington is 4th among states in total U.S. blueberry production. But Mexico’s blueberry industry, already the world’s 3rd largest exporter, is “surging north." Anti-immigrant policies and water shortages due to prolonged droughts are encouraging growers, like Driscoll’s, to move south of the border.

Blueberries aren’t the only Washington ‘crop’ moving to more favorable climes. CO2-produced ocean acidification caused oysters to start dying by the billions along the Northwest coast in 2005, and the industry has been struggling ever since. Some oyster hatcheries have already moved to Hawaii. Washington’s shellfish industry is hurting.

The snowpack at many locations in the Cascades is as low as people at USDA have seen for this time of year. That spells trouble for Washington growers in the summer when farms, fish, and people are all competing for an increasingly scarce water resource.

There are real impacts from a warming planet and they affect real people. Studies have shown unequivocally that we can reduce CO2 emissions and boost the economy (e.g., see REMI, June 9, 2014). Get on board! Support Gov. Inslee’s Carbon Pollution Accountability Act, and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Ignorance cultivated in the interests of ideology has been practiced by liberals and conservatives alike; an unfortunate but enduring facet of human behavior, probably since Homo Habilis rose from slime mold to “handy man.” Since the New Millennium, however, Republicans seem to have incorporated and promoted the practice as central to their strategy. Why?

Why did Rick Santorum call President Obama a snob for promoting a college education? Why did Republicans in Oklahoma try to ban Advanced Placement History and other AP courses? Why did Rick Perry, in his infamous “Oops moment,” have no trouble remembering he’d cut the Department of Education, while forgetting whatever the third department was? Why are Republican-controlled state legislatures promoting private, tax-payer funded “Christ-centric” schools over public education?

Money. The big-monied interests supporting the Republican Party are not enthusiastic about a well-educated (or, as it happens, even a robust) electorate. It’s easier to convince people who are ignorant about basic physics, or chemistry, or geology, or statistics, or [oh-my-goodness!] paleoclimatology, that global warming is a hoax. Just bring a snowball to the floor of Congress.

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So long and thanks for all the fish

So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear?

You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that
grow around you

So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish

The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve

Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet

So long, so long, so long and thanks for all the fish

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984, ISBN 0-345-39183-7) is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tetralogy written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route.

Blog Author

Richard Badalamente earned his BS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California and MS–Human Factors and PhD-Behavioral Science from Texas Tech. He is an author at http://tinyurl.com/pakn8el